Australia wants Facebook held liable for anonymous comments
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has described social media as a “coward’s palace” and warns that digital platforms such as Facebook should be held liable for defamatory comments posted anonymously
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Australia’s prime minister on Thursday described social media as a “coward’s palace” and warned that digital platforms including Facebook should be held liable for defamatory comments posted anonymously.
Anonymous commentators who use social media to vilify and bully have become the latest battleground between Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government and U.S. tech giants. The government wants social media users to be required to identify themselves.
Australia passed laws this year that oblige Google and Facebook to pay for journalism. Australia also defied the tech companies by creating a law that could imprison social media executives if their platforms stream violent images.
Morrison said platforms that do not reveal the identities of people who post defamatory comments should be held liable for those comments.
“Cowards who go anonymously on to social media and vilify people, and harass them, and bully them, and engage in defamatory statements, they need to be responsible for what they’re saying,” Morrison said.
“Social media has become a coward’s palace where people can just go on there, not say who they are, destroy people’s lives and say the most foul and offensive things to people, and do so with impunity,” he added.
His comments come as Australian state and territory governments are rushing to rewrite their defamation laws after the High Court last month set a precedent for the internet age, ruling that media outlets can be held liable for defamatory comments posted by third parties on their Facebook pages.
The court didn’t rule on whether Facebook was also liable because the platform wasn’t being sued.
The precedent applies to the administrators of all Facebook pages, including governments. The Tasmania state government has blocked comments from its social media sites, and the U.S. news organization CNN has excluded Australians from its Facebook page.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said on Wednesday the national review of defamation laws will likely examine whether Facebook should be liable for users’ posts.
Morrison said the need for platforms to identify commentators was an objective that his government would be “leaning even further into.”